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User blog:Reaper with no name/Old Stuff 2: The Economics of Pacific Rim
Before I repost this one, it's worth noting that as it turns out (I had missed it the first time through), the world (or at least the wall workers in Alaska) are under rationing. Given that it is in America (likely still the world's largest economy or at least close to it) and that they are working on the wall, it is likely that rationing is quite common in the world (if not universal). DenzJay wrote: To me, they should have just built it for free. I mean, GIANT MONSTERS are set to destroy the world as we know it, and they still need FUNDING for the program? At the verge of this disaster, our world leaders should have just made the program free of funds, because it's just wrong to still get income while the world is at the brink of destruction and civilians are just dying and the government's swimming in money out of the funding for the Jaeger program. But even I know it's necesary, but in that situation, would you still need money even if you know that the world will end if we don't stop the Kaijus? Economics doesn't work that way. Money on it's own has no worth. It has worth because society has agreed to use it as a barter item that can be traded for anything (so if you have a cow and want to trade it for a horse, and the other guy has a horse but wants a bushel of carrots, you aren't screwed; you can sell the cow for money, buy the horse with the money, and the other guy can use the money to buy his carrots). Even with all the world's governments at work, you can't make something "free" as long as human labor is required to produce it, simply because humans need things. Even if you forced people to work on the Jaegers as slaves (where they officially don't recieve payment), those people will still need food, water, and shelter. The Jaegers themselves need metal, and silicon, and plastics, and power, and a thousand other things. There are millions of people involved to get one going, and they all need to eat, too. And that's without getting into all the support staff or logistics. The practical equivalent of what you're suggesting is rationing, but even that just clamps down on the costs a bit; it doesn't remove them entirely. Furthermore, getting the entire world to agree to rationing given the political landscape during the movie (where it is implied nations have gone back to their petty conflicts) would be very difficult. It would also require acknowledgement of the severity of the situation, which is one thing the world desperately seems to want to avoid (even if doing so isn't wise). And all of that stuff the Jaegers need that I mentioned earlier? It all relies on very complicated webs of industries, companies, and people that are all interconnected. They rely primarily on commercial activity to function. Rationing by its very nature means limiting commercial activity in an effort to funnel more resources towards war. Do it enough (or incorrectly) and it will severely harm the economy, which will then harm the supply of the labor, skills, and material that the rationing was intended to maximize in the first place. And what about the people whose occupations can't be used to directly feed the war effort? Do you shut them down? If not, then you haven't actually changed much (especially in service economies, which happen to include some of the world's biggest economic players). If you do, then what happens to them? There may or may not be a way they can contribute. Do you just let them rot? Good luck pushing that through. And even if you succeed, less people consuming goods inevitably means less competition, which then leads to inefficiency. And this is without getting into any of the political minefields or social upheaval that such actions would evoke. The other (much simpler) option is to simply leave the economic infrastructure in place and raise revenue by traditional channels cranked up to eleven (that is, taxes and debt accumulation). Of course, these cause economic problems as well (taxes that are too high result in less consumer spending, which leads to less economic activity, which paradoxically leads to less tax revenue; too much debt requires one to choose between raising taxes by even greater amounts down the road or letting the debt go unpaid, which makes debtors unwilling to finance more debt). But it's much simpler than reorganizing one's entire economic system and doesn't involve displacing untold numbers of people. The simpler the change, the easier it is to get it done. By the way, I recall Raleigh making an off-hand remark when he reaches Hong Kong about not having seen bread in a while. Given that bread is one of the most basic staple foods in North America and that Raleigh was working on the wall (and governments would no doubt try their hardest to make sure the wall workers were fed, given that they had pinned their hopes on it), it seems likely that one way or another, the world economy had already been pushed to its limits. Category:Blog posts